Kate Oliver - Chopsticks for Drumsticks

 

 

My family don't do leftovers. I was a kid in the 1980s, so we were all told that starving children are desperate for your food and were stuck at the table for hours until your plate was totally clean, which is not very healthy, but did help me in training for my greatest physical challenge. 

 

I had been with my partner for a couple of years. He's Malaysian-Australian, so we were traveling to Australia, for me, to meet his family for the first time. We stopped off in Hong-Kong where his auntie and uncle live to meet them. I was so anxious about this meeting, partly, because they were the first of his family I was going to get to meet. I really like this guy. I really wanted to make a good impression. And partly, because being anxious about things is just my go-to emotion. This was not helped when we met them. We walked up to this restaurant, which was easily the fanciest restaurant I've seen before or since. 

 

My partner's family are culturally Chinese. His uncle is a very, very wealthy businessman. This was clearly the place that he took clients to impress or very much intimidate. Every surface, I'm not exaggerating. It was gold. Just every surface gold. The management welcomed him in by name. Apparently, he's a knight in Hong Kong. They took us up to a private dining room where the four of us sat at a 16-seater table [audience laughter] with a golden dragon with ruby eyes staring down. [audience laughter]

 

So, I was internally freaking out, but there was one thing I was confident about. My partner had told me that his family were very impressed if you had a good appetite. And I can put it away. [audience laughter] I used to routinely cook a 500-gram bag of pasta and eat that for dinner. I don't look like I can do that, so I also had the element of surprise going in. [audience laughter] 

 

But these guys were serious feeders. Uncle ordered everything. It was all family style. So, dishes came out. And because I was the special guest, he filled up my plate first. And as soon as I'd finished it, he would fill it with something else. And this food was amazing. There was tofu with oyster sauce, there was roast pork, there was an entire fish with chili sauce, there was green beans, there was Chinese broccoli, there was a duck, there was beef stir fry, there were dumplings, there was rice and noodles, because why would you choose just one. 

 

I was doing really well, but it kept coming. He kept ordering. And after 13 courses, it showed no sense of slowing down. I was starting to really panic. I'd surreptitiously undone my belt onto the table, [audience laughter] but my dress had nothing to give. To give you an idea of how panicky I was, one of the dishes was half a roast goose. And uncle, very sweetly, again, had given me the drumstick. That's the biggest, the most special part. I, in my anxiety, picked up and attempted to eat this drumstick by holding it with chopsticks until aunty very kindly leant over and said, “You can use your hands.” [audience laughter] 

 

So, I was getting fuller and fuller, and in genuine physical pain and worrying that the first impression these guys were going to get from me was vomiting on gold. [audience laughter] Until finally, finally, dessert came out. It was those Hong-Kong custard buns that are-- Right, they're amazing. They're delicious. They're also pretty small. But I was so full by that point, I couldn't even look it in the eye. I just put it in my mouth and swilled it from side to side of my [audience laughter] cheeks for maybe six or seven minutes, just trying to will it to go down. [audience laughter] 

 

Finally, finally, dinner was over. We walked out of the restaurant, we put aunty and uncle in a cab, I slammed the door of the taxi. As it began to drive away, I genuinely fell to my knees, [audience laughter] ripped off my belt. My partner said, “What? What? Are you okay?” And I said, “What happened? Were they trying to hurt me? What just happened in there?” And he explained to me that in his family, if you clear the plate, that means you've not had enough and you're asking for more. [audience laughter] 

 

So, thanks to my training, my steely politeness that evening had meant I was doing this to myself, and had I left even one bite of leftovers, it would have all been over at any point. 

We've been together for 13 years now. When we last saw aunty and uncle, they were still making fun of me for the goose drumstick thing, so I think that means that we're family now. Thanks very much.